Retailer Wants to Mint New San Diego Look
San Diego’s home-grown style may not have registered on the radar screens of fashionistas; however, retailer Nicki Starr hopes to change that perception with her new boutique, Civil Disobedience, which opened July 28 in downtown’s Little Italy section.
Starr vowed to devote more than 30 percent of the 800-square-foot store’s space to San Diego designers.
“National lines will attract attention to the store,” Starr said. “But I can fill in holes that may be in the national collections with San Diego talent. I don’t have to run to L.A. or New York to buy. Talent is at my back door.”
The store will carry well-known brands such as Robert Graham, 7 Diamonds, Paper Denim & Cloth, Super Lucky Cat and L.A. Made. The San Diego designers will be mostly students and graduates of Fashion Careers College, which is based in the Mission Bay section. Starr said she worked in the school’s admissions department from 2001 to 2002.
The San Diego designers’ fashions will be taken on consignment. Half of the store’s floor space will be devoted to menswear, with the other half to women’s contemporary fashions. Price points will be $150 and under.
Starr will join a new wave of retailers that have put down stakes in downtown San Diego in the past two years, since the area experienced a boom in loft construction. More than 10 fashion boutiques have opened in the neighborhood to service an anticipated population of young, fashion-conscious professionals who will move into these downtown lofts.
Lara Dean Fernandez, co-owner of The Assembly, a downtown boutique, said she started selling art-driven brands such as Skunkfunk in early 2005 because she believed that a forward- looking fashion market would take root in this growing district. The downtown market has taken longer to build than expected, she said. Instead, much of the neighborhood’s bustling foot traffic seems more apt to visit the area’s thriving bars and restaurants than go shopping for the latest fashions.
Starr, however, believes that the neighborhood’s potential for fashion boutiques is on-target to blossom. “People in this area have money,” she said, “and they want to look unique.” —Andrew Asch
